Thoughts on opening a second location?

Recommended Posts

Hey guys, my shop is becoming pretty successful and it runs pretty well without me being there (most of the time), should run flawlessly if I hire another advisor for when I'm not there.

Owner of a building of a 5 bay garage 1995 sq/ft contacted me to see if I want to rent it out for $2400/mo. Currently leasing a 3000 sq/ft 6 bay garage about 20 miles away for $4100/mo. I have a reliable employee that recently quit bc of the distance he was driving and the new location is only 15min away so I have people to work lined up and this one is 10min from my house oppesed to 45 min for my current shop. My current shop has a 5 yr lease so not planning on giving anything up.

I have a good brand image and a strong reputation. Google alone 82 reviews 4.9 rating.

Profitability wise I just got to the point of being able to pay myself salary. Is it too risky? Headache worth it? Thoughts?

Similar Forum Topics

I think we all know that diagnostics is the most costly service we provide in the automotive repair business today. In today's automotive repair environment, you need to be selling diagnostics, and getting paid for it. I'm looking for feedback on when things don't go exactly as planned.
Let's say a car comes in and you sell some diagnostics, by the hour, or from a menu. After you complete that work, and you still don't have an answer, do you go back to the customer and sell some more? Do you continue at your expense? If you do go back to the customer, and you have nothing conclusive after that, then what? Do you keep going back and selling more diagnostic work until you solve the problem? If you continue to go back and sell more, how many times can you do that? We've all had that car that we've worked on for weeks to find some strange problem. I doubt many customers are willing to pay for the 40 hours you spent on the car.
Now lets say after 5 hours of work that the customer agreed to, you are no closer to finding the issue than when the car came in. Do you charge them for the 5 hours and send them down the road even though you have not provided them with a diagnoses? Do you start spending your time trying to solve the issue because you have a hard time charging for 5 hours and are unable to provide any answers?
I'm asking these questions as I am rethinking my business strategy on diagnostics a little. Our shop is known for its abilities to diagnose problems. We have other shops bringing cars to us on a regular basis because of these abilities. I actually get several calls and emails weekly from across the county for help diagnosing problems. There are times, a lot of times, when I think this is more of a curse, than a blessing. I know we are in the business of fixing cars, and we need to be able to find problems if customers are going to keep coming back. But after my lead tech and I spent a considerable amount of time over the last 15 days diagnosing the strangest intermittent no start issue on an Audi, and watching his frustration grow everyday, not because of the difficulty of the issue as we both love the challenge, but because it held him back from addressing the other work that was coming in the shop.
So, as rewarding as it was to solve that mystery, I can't help but look back at what it cost me financially, and the frustration to the technician, and realize we have to come up with a way to try to avoid going down those rabbit holes. Right now my idea is to give it 1 hour. If after an hour, we are not relatively certain that we will find the issue, with another hour or two, then let the car go. Let the customer know that it's not that we can't fix the car, but that we cannot fix it efficiently. If I lose that customer, it would probably still be cheaper that working on his car for 2 weeks.
Love to hear your thoughts.
Scott

I have a 2 bay facility that I rent and one employee plus myself. I was quoted about $2346 per year for both general liability and garage keepers from Liberty Mutual(using CoverWallet as the broker).
- General liability was $1,032 per year if paid in full for $1,000,000 limit and $2,000,000 aggregate
- Garage keepers was $1320 per year if paid in full for $75,000 coverage
Does this sound right? I am in the process of getting other quotes but wanted to see if I am in the right ballpark. This is my first time getting insurance for the business and it seems like some places don't want to insure you unless you have history.
Shop size:
Employees:
Location:
Own or rent:
Coverage:
Insurer:
Thank you

Just got my e-mail on the latest forum topics. Out of 20 topics 7 are marketing ads from the same person. Also under popular forum topics of 5, 3 are ads also by same person of which no discussion took place. So how are these popular. I get a ton of advertising e-mail. Just didn't expect this from ASO. I do look into some ASO sponsor ads. But this is not necessary.

Yes, a little embarrassing, but it's better that I share these mistakes I made rather than you have to go through them.
Hope this helps! I welcome your comments! Are you making any of these mistakes?
Matthew Lee
"The Car Count Fixer"
Grow your Car Count, Income and Profits with Car Count Hackers on YouTube!